The Founding of Boone
County Missouri

The following is directly quoted from the History of Boone County,
Missouri originally published in 1882. It is purported to be "written
and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources".
The style may be slightly old fashioned and in some places quite "full
of themselves", but nevertheless it is entertaining and very informative
reading.

Introduction

At first view, and without thought or examination, it may be affirmed
by some that Boone county has no history which is worthy of the name, or
at least which assumes such proportions and importance as to merit publication
in an enduring form. It is not improbable that a hasty judgment would conclude
that at best this history consists of few events of special interest, and
that none of them have influenced the policy, development or destiny of
the State.

Closer and more thorough examination, however, will disclose the
fact that Boone county has nobly and courageously borne its part in advancing
the progress, civilization and culture of our time, and the common prosperity
and glory of the commonwealth of Missouri.

Originally its territory constituted a part of the county of Howard,
which, as organized in 1816, was an empire in superficial area. The act
of the General Assembly, approved January 13, 1816, organizing Howard county
out of the territories of St. Louis and St. Charles, fixed its boundaries
substantially as follows: Beginning at the mouth of the Osage river, which
is about ten miles below the present Cty [sic] of Jefferson and opposite
the village of Barkersville in Callaway county, the boundary pursued the
circuitous course of said stream "to the Osage boundary line", meaning
thereby the eastern boundary of the Osage Indian territory, or to the northeast
corner of Vernon county, where the Osage river, two miles east of the present
town of Schell City, runs near said corner; thence north (along the western
of St. Clair, Henry, Johnson, and Lafayette), to the Missouri river, striking
that stream west of and very near Napoleon; thence up said river to the
mouth of the Kansas river, (now Kansas City), "thence with the Indian
boundary line, (as described in a proclamation of the Governor [Wm. Clark]
issued the ninth day of March, 1815,) northwardly along the eastern boundary
of the "Platte Purchase" one hundred and forty miles, or to a point about
36 miles north and within the present county of Adams, Iowa, near the town
of Corning in said county, on the Burlington and Missouri River railroad,
"thence eastward with the said line to the main dividing ridge of high
ground, to the main fork of the river Cedar [which is the line between
Boone and Callaway counties in Missouri], and in the middle of the main
channel thereof, to the mouth of the great Osage river, the place of the
beginning."

Although these boundaried cannot be definitely traced on the map,
it is nevertheless clearly seen that Howard county, as orginally organized
in 1816,1 more than five years before the State was admitted
into the Union, embraced not only the present territory of the county of
Boone, but in addition a vast area north and south of the Missouri river,
and including the present counties of Cole, north part of Miller, Morgan,
north parts of Benton and St. Plair, Henry, Johnson, Lafayette, Pettis,
Cooper, Moniteau, Saline, Clay, Clinton, DeKalb, Gentry, Worth, Harrison,
Daviess, Caldwell, Ray, Carroll, Livingston, Grundy, Mercer, Putnam, Sullivan,
Linn, Chariton, Randalph, Macon, Adair, and probably parts of Shelby, Monroe
and Adrain. And in addition the following counties in Iowa: parts of Taylor
and Adams; Union, Ringgold, Clarke, Decatur, and Wayne, and probably parts
of Lucas, Monroe and Appanoose.

A vast empire to constitute a single county, embracing at least five
of the present counties of Iowa and probably parts of as many more, and
in addition more than thirty of the present counties of Missouri, eight
and parts of three others south of the river, and twenty-three and parts
of several others north of it, this large expanse of territory, covering
about forteen million acres of land and presenting a superficial area of
21,874 square miles. An area larger than ancient Greece, and as large as
Saxony and Switzerland combined, and larger than the States of Vermont,
Massachusetts, Delaware and Rhode Island.

In one respect, therefore, it might truthfully be said that as the
present territory of Boone for five years and more constituted a part of
the extensive empire, its history is properly the history of Boone county,
and that this volume should embrace the entire county of Howard for that
period.

But such is not the scope and character of the history which follows,
the simple object being to record in chronological order the more important
events which transpired within the present limits of Boone county from
the earliest white settlement in 1815 to the present time, a period of
sixty-seven years.

In superficial area - 674 square miles or 431,000 acres - Boone county
is larger than some of the states of Europe and the islands of the ocean,
which stricken from the roll of empire or blotted from the annals of nations
would so mar the history of the eastern hemisphere as to leave it measurably
without a history.

It is also about half as large as one of the States of the American
Union, and one-third the area of several others; and in the sphere in which
it has moved, and to the extent of its opportunitites and capacity, and
the comparatively short period which has elapsed since its first settlement,
will favorably compare in the achievements and prowess with some geographical
divisions of our own and foreign lands, larger even in size and much older
in years, whose history is canonized in poetry and song.

Located in the central part of the State, and settle nearly seventy
years ago [this being written in 1882 - ed.] by a hardy and progressive
race of pioneers, who then laid the foundations of its present prosperity,
wealth and culture, it will be found that its history is an enexhaustible
store-house of "moving incidents by flood and field," of events grave and
gay, of steady advancement in agriculture, education and a Christian civilization,
and in all the arts of peace.

What is here claimed for it receives ample verification in its improved
farms and farm machinery, its farm-houses and barns, its churches and schools,
its newspapers and periodicals, its improved stock and thoroughfares, the
prowess of its soldiers in war and the eloquence and achievements of its
statesmen and orators in council, the culture and beauty of its women,
the qualifications and success of its scholars and teachers, the earnestness
and ability of its clergymen, the learning and character of its lawyers,
the genius of its authors, poets and novelists, and the general thrift,
hospitality, and public spirit of its people.

In a word: No county in the State, St. Louis city and county excepted,
has contributed more vitality to the agencies which are solving for the
State the problems of prosperity, wealth, and culture, or in a larger measure
influenced the councils or shaped the policy of the commonwealth, than
"Old Boone".

Such a county and such a people have a history, and one which, if
faithfully and accurately written, will disclose a wealth of incident,
adventure and interest not excelled by any in the Great West.

The county comprises a part of that large area of inland territory
which, in the earlier times, received the name of "The Boone's Lick Country",
and which embraced "the nine upper counties on the Missouri River, Clay,
Ray, Chariton, Howard, Boone, Cole, Cooper, Saline, and Lillard,"2
the name of the latter being changed to Lafayette, February 16, 1825, a
circumstance which was no doubt inspired by Lafayette's visit to St. Louis
during that year.

Howard County was the largest, most populous, and at that period
the most important of the counties belonging to "The Boone's Lick Country,"
and contained a small salt spring in Cooper's Bottom, now in Boone's Lick
Township, in that county, and nearly opposite Arrow Rock, from which the
name was derived.3

It is quite a prevalent error that Boon's Lick [sic] or the salt
spring above mentioned, was first occupied and utilized as a manufactory
of salt by Daniel Boone, the old Kentucky pioneer. There is no evidence
known to us that Daniel Boone ever owned or operated or saw the spring,
or ever was in Howard County. Two of his sons, however, - Nathan and Daniel
M. Boone, - during the summer of 1807, and in company with three other
men, left the Femme Osage Creek settlement, in St. Charles County, where
the elder Boone then lived, and came up to Howard County with a few kettles
to manufacture salt at this spring, and, because of this fact, it was called
"Boone's Lick".

Up to the close of the last war with Great Britain, which is known
in the popular parlance and denominated in the laws of Congress as "the
War of 1812", nearly if not all the inhabitants of Howard county were confined
to three small stockade forts - Cooper's, Hempstead's and Kincaid's4
- and therefore the present territory of Boone was substantially without
population, unless the hostile tribes of Indians - Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos
and Pottawatamies - which abounded in this part of the then territory,
are accounted as such.

It is true, that as early as 1812-13, before the tide of flagrant
war reached the interior of the territory, a few of the small hive of emigrant
Kentuckians that settled in Cooper's bottom ventured to the rich lands
on the east side of the Moniteau, at "Thrall's Prairie", as it was afterwards
called; and no doubt they were inspired to make the venture by the protection
afforded by Head's Fort, a small stockade defence named in honor of Capt.
William Head.

It was situated in a curve of the Moniteau, and on the east side
of it in Howard county, about two miles north of Rocheport, a mile and
a half south of where the old St. Charles road crossed the Moniteau, and
about a half mile west of the Boone line and the same distance east of
the creek. It was located at a spring of never-failing water, which is
on land now (1882) owned by Mr. John L. Jones.

First White Settlement in Boone

The history of Boone County, not unlike the history of the largest
empires on the globe, may be said to be funnel-shaped. Starting from a
single point of time (1815) and from a single locality (Thrall's Prairie),
its contour diverges and widens as the years roll on until it embraces
the population, growth and achievements of nearly three-quarters of a century.

In the beginning a paragraph, a line, a word would record all it
had of history. After the elapse of seventy years, so rapid has been the
succession and so countless the number of its events, so transforming the
forces of its being, and so progressive and civilizing the nature of its
achievements in art, in education, in religion, and in all the varied industries
which characterize the civilization of our age, that an octavo volume is
too small to perpetuate its annals.

The first settlement, or more properly the first cabin erected and
patch of corn planted, were the work in 1812-13, of John and William Berry,
Wm. Baxter and Reuben Gentry, in the neighborhood, if not on a part, of
what is now known as "the Model Farm", formerly constituting the large
and rich estate of the late Hon. John W. Harris, and in earlier times called
"Thrall's Prairie".5 In the same neighborhood, soon after, settled
James Barnes, Robert and Mitchel Payne, John Denham, David McQuitty and
Robert Barclay, with their families. Little progress, however, was made
in the settlement of the country, now embraced by the boundary lines of
Boone County, until after the subsidence of the war with Great Britain,
and until after the treaty of 1815 by which the Indians relinquished all
claim to any portion of the territory north of the Missouri River. In fact,
it may be affirmed as substantially true that, anterior to this time, there
was not a white settlement worthy of the name within the present limits
of the county.

Speedily succeeding the declaration of peace and the ratification
of this treaty of relinquishment of Indian title the tide of immigration
set in as a flood, and Robert Hinkson (not Hinckston), after whom the creek
on which Columbia is located was called; William Callaham, for whom "Callaham's
Fork", of the Perche, is named; Wm. Graham, Reuben and Henry Cave, and
perhaps some others, all from Madison County, Ky., settled along the old
Boone's Lick trail, or old St. Charles Road, leading from St. Louis to
Franklin - a "trail" which was first traversed in 1808-10 by Lieutenant-Colonel
Ben. Cooper, and other immigrants of that name, while en route from
Madison County, Ky., via St. Charles County and Loutre Island settlement
to the neighborhood of "Boone's Lick", in Howard County.

In 1869-70, Mr. E.W. Stephens, as assistant editor of the Columbia
Statesman, of which paper Col. W.F. Switzler was editor and proprietor,
prepared for and published in that journal, a series of interesting historical
sketches of Boone County, in which it is claimed that "Callaham, Graham
and Hinkson stopped along the Boone's Lick trail and erected cabins, as
taverns, for the accommodation of movers and travellers"; that Callaham
"was a noted hunter and Indian fighter, and can be justly designated as
the first white man who ever settled in Boone County. Nearly the same time,
however, John Graham built a cabin near the present site of Rocky Fork
church (seven miles northwest of Columbia), and he was followed by Robert
Hinkson, who lived near the source of the stream that bears his name".

The years 1816, 1817 and 1818 - the latter the year of the first
land sales at Franklin, - witnessed a great influx of population into the
"Boone's Lick country", and into the territory now composing the county
of Boone.

In 1816, Augustus Thrall and others settled in what was soon thereafter
known as "Thrall's Prairie". The Stephens - Statesman sketches say
that "in 1816 settlement in Boone County began in earnest. In the spring
of that year a number of the inhabitants of Head's Fort, located near Rocheport,
settled on what was afterwards known as Thrall's Prairie, situated four
miles north of the present site of Rocheport. They settled upon "Madrid
locations". "Madrid locations" were tracts of land which were granted by
the government to settlers who had suffered losses by the earthquakes in
the county of New Madrid, in the years 1811 and 1812. Most of the land
of that section was entered by Taylor Berry, of Franklin".6

"This settlement was made by Anderson Woods, in company with the
following persons: Robert Barclay, John Barnes, William Pipes, Absalom
Hicks, John Stephenson, Jefferson Fulcher, a family of Bartons, Jesse Richardson
and several others.

"The settlement grew with great rapidity, and soon comprised some
among the best citizens of that time - men who have left their impress
upon the history and development of our county. Among them we note the
following: Augustus Thrall, Oliver Parker, Anderson Woods, Tyre Harris,
Overton Harris, Sampson, William and Stephen Wilhite, Henry Lightfoot,
James Ketchum, William Boone, William Goslin, John Slack, Wilford Stephens,
Jonathan Barton, James Cochran, Reuben Hatton, Charles Laughlin, and a
number whose names we have not space to give.

"In 1819, Oliver Parker had a store there and kept a post-office,
which was for some time known as "Lexington".

"In the spring of 1817, the next settlement was begun, in Perche
Bottom, in the southwestern portion of the county, by John Hickam, Anthony
Head, Peter and Robert Austin, John McMickel, Jacob Maggard, Silas Riggs
and Abraham N. Foley.

"In 1817, immigration to the county was very large, and in every
section large settlements sprung up with amazing rapidity, and steadily
increased during the years 1818, 1819 and 1820. It is, of course, impossible
to ascertain with exactitude the date of the immigration or primitive abodes
of these early settlers, but it is due to those hardy and worthy pioneers,
who first reclaimed our county from a wilderness, that their names should
be preserved as far as possible, in a permanent history of our county.

In the vicinity of Claysville lived William Ramsay, Jesse Byrant,
Mark Cunningham.

From the neighborhood of Rocheport to Thrall's Prairie were located
John Grey, Gaven Head, Joseph Head, John Berry, David and Andrew McQuitty,
Samuel Beattie, Robert Daly, John Copher, Solomon and Zachariah Barnett,
Wm. Baxter, James Boggs, David and James Pipes, John Copeland, David Kincaid,
Wm. Lientz, John G. Philips, Michael Woods, J.R. Abernathy, Robert D. Walkup,
and Tyre Harris.

In the vicinity of the present site of Midway, lived John Henderson,
Jonathan Freeman, Benjamin Mothershead, Charles Laughlin, W.T. Hatton,
Geo. Crump, Wm. and James Y. Jones, John Ogan.

A few miles north of Columbia, resided Caleb Fenton, Riley Slocum,
Hiram Phillips, David C. Westerfield, Jacob Hoover, John Slack, John T.
Evans, Zachariah Jackson, John Harrison. Still farther north, near where
now stands Red Top meeting-house, were James Hicks, Wm. L. Wayne, and Zaddock
Riggs.

"On Perche Creek, in the northwestern section of the county, where
the old road, or "Boone's Lick Trace", crossed the Perche, there stood
the old town of Perche, long since obliterated. Some of its inhabitants
were George and Isham Sexton, James C. Babbitt, James Ryan, Adam E. Rowland,
Peter Stivers, Nicholas Gentry, and Enoch Taylor.

"Near where Rockyfork meeting-house now stands lived John Graham,
Aquilla and Amos Barnes.

Where Hallsville now stands lived John Roberts and other families
of the same name, Peter and Joseph Fountain, Andrew J. Hendrick, and John
and Joshua Davis, and Smith Turner.

Near where Rockbridge Mills now are were Thomas S. Tuttle, the original
settler of that place; Peter Creason, Nathan Glasgow, Elias Elston, and
John H. Lynch.

Within the neighborhood of Providence lived first Ira P. Nash, for
whom Nashville was named; then John and Robert Peters and Gilpin S. Tuttle.

A few miles northwest of Columbia were John Witt, James Turley, James
Mayo, and a family of Barnetts.

"The first church organized in the Boone's Lick country was Mount
Pleasant, in 1815, seven miles north of old Franklin.

"The first church organized in Boone County was called "Bethel",
and was situated in a northwestern section of the county, eight miles north
of Rocheport. It was organized June 28, 1817; the persons forming it were
Anderson Woods, Betsey Woods, David McQuitty, John Turner, and James Harris.
William Thorp was its first pastor. The next church formed was Little Bonne
Femme, in December, 1819, by David Doyle, Anderson Woods, Elizabeth Woods,
James Harris, Polly Harris, Mourning Harris, Elizabeth Kennon, John Maupin,
Elias Elston, Matthew Haley, Jane Tuttle, Lazarus Wilcox, Lucy Wilcox,
James Wiseman, Thomas S. Tuttle, and Nancy Tuttle. David Doyle was the
first pastor, and continued in that position for ten years, when he became
pastor of Salem Church, and so continued for thirty years, thus spending
forty years in the ministry in our county, for which, it is said, he never
received a dime of remuneration".

Two important events: The first newspaper and the first
steamboat at Franklin

Although Franklin is not, and never was, in Boone County, there were
two events which occurred there, the first in April and the second in May,
1819, of sufficient importance in the history of "the Boone's Lick Country",
of which this county was a part, to justify in this place more than a passing
notice. Both of these events had an important bearing upon the development
and destiny of interior Missouri, and of the whole State; and a detailed
account of them is an enduring form is justified by their prominence and
significance.

The first newspaper

On the 23d of April, 1819, Nathaniel Patten and Benjamin Holliday
commenced the publication of the Missouri Intelligencer in Franklin,
then a flourishing town on the Missouri river and opposite Boonville. The
size of the sheet was 18 by 24 inches, and it was printed on what is known
among printers as the Ramage press, a wooden contrivance with cast-iron
bed, joints and platen, and which at this day is a great curiosity. About
twenty-five years ago Col. Wm. F. Switzler presented this press to the
Mercantile Library Association of St. Louis, the Missouri Historical Society
then not being in existence, where it can be seen.

Recently we came in possession of full and complete files, substantially
bound, of the Missouri Intelligencer from its initial number, April
23, 1819, to its last issue (in Columbia), December 5, 1835, embracing
a period of over sixteen years, to which we are indebted for much valuable
historical matter relating to this county, and which will be found in its
proper place in this book.

Many changes occurred in the publishers or owners of the Intelligencer,
the details of which we have taken the trouble to collect from its files,
and to record as follows:-

April 23, 1819, to June 10, 1820, Nathaniel Patten and Benjamin Holliday,
publishers. (Mrs. E.W. McClannahan, near Columbia, is a daughter of Mr.
Holliday.7)

June 10, 1820, Mr. Patten retired as publisher, leaving Mr. Holliday
in charge, or owner, who continued till July 23, 1821, when John Payne,
a lawyer, became editor. He was a native of Culpepper county, Va., and
died in Franklin, September 15, 1821, aged 24 years.

August 5, 1822, to April 17, 1824, Nathaniel Patten and John T. Cleaveland
are publishers. Mr. Cleaveland died some years ago at an advanced age in
Austin Texas.

April 17, 1824, Mr. Cleaveland retired, leaving Mr. Patten as sole
publisher, which position he continued to hold until the sale of the paper
by him to Mr. Fred. A. Hamilton, December 12, 1835.

Last issue of the Intelligencer in Franklin, June 16, 1826.

First issue of the Intelligencer in Fayette, June 29, 1826.

July 5, 1827, John Wilson, then a young lawyer in Fayette, is announced
as editor, which position he held till July 25, 1828. Mr. Wilson died in
San Francisco, Cal., February 2, 1877, aged 87 years.

In August, 1827, James H. Birch commenced the publication in Fayette
of the Western Monitor.

April 9, 1830, last issue of the Intelligencer in Fayette.

May 4, 1830, first issue of the Intelligencer in Columbia.

December 5, 1835, last issue of the Intelligencer in Columbia.

December 12, 1835, first issue of the Patriot in Columbia.

December 23, 1842, last issue of the Patriot, and January
6, 1843, first issue of its successor, the Statesman, which has
been regularly continued to this day under the same management.

August 1, 1881, after twelve years' experience as business manager,
Irwin Switzler, eldest son of W.F. Switzler, became proprietor of the Statesman,
the latter continuing as editor-in-chief.

Near the close of the year 1835 it became known that Mr. Patten,
owing to failing health, intended to dispose of the Intelligencer
office, and as the Presidential and State elections of the following year
were approaching, the possession of the paper became an object of interest
to some of the politicians and people, Whig and Democratic, about Columbia.
Both parties wanted it; and the Democrats, under the leadership of Austin
A. King, then a lawyer resident here and in 1848 elected Governor of the
State, Dr. Wm. H. Duncan, still an honored citizen of Columbia, Dr. Alexander
M. Robinson and others made some efforts to secure the office. While negotiations
to this end were pending, Robert S. Barr, Oliver Parker, Wm. Cornelius,
Warren Woodson, Moses U. Payne, A.W. Turner, Joseph B. Howard, John B.
Gordon, Sinclair Kirtley, David and Roger N. Todd, Dr. Wm. Jewell, James
S. Rollins, Thomas Miller and perhaps other Whigs, entered into a written
agreement to raise the money to purchase the press and materials, and they
did it with the understanding that Frederick A. Hamilton, a practical printer,
should take charge of the publication, and Rollins and Miller, then two
young lawyers of Columbia, editorial conduct of the paper, the name of
which, December 12, 1835, was changed to Patriot. Hamilton was announced
as publisher, and Rollins and Miller as editors. Maj. Rollins selected
from Shakspeare the motto of the Patriot, "Be just and fear not;
let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country's" which it bore until it
was supplanted by the Statesman in 1843, and which has ever since
floated at the masthead of the Statesman.

Of the parties named in this connection all are dead except Duncan,
Rollins and Payne.

Rollins and Miller finally became owners of the office and continued
to edit the paper until the close of the Presidential election of 1840,
when Rollins sold his interest to Wm. T.B. Sanford, a printer, and retired,
leaving Col. Miller sole editor.

In July, 1841, the present editor of the Stateman became editor
of the Patriot, Col. Thomas Miller having retired, but still retaining
a half ownership, with the hope of recuperating his health by a trip across
the plains to Santa Fe. Dying en route of pulmonary consumption,
September 15, 1841, at "Round Mound", two hundred miles this side of his
destination, where he was interred on the treeless plain, aged 31 years,
more than three months elapsed before news of his death reached columbia.
February 19, 1842, Wm. T.B. Sanford, surviving partner of the firm of Miller
and Sanford, sold Col. Miller's interest to John B. and Younger J. Williams,
the new proprietors, Sanford, Williams & Co., assuming control March
1, 1842. On the 19th of August, 1842, Dr. A.J. McKelway (now a citizen
of Marion county) purchased Mr. Sanford's interest, became editor - Wm.
F. Switzler retiring, - and in conjunction with the Williams brothers,
published the Patriot till December 16, 1842, when Wm. F. Switzler
purchased McKelway's half interest and he retired. At the same time John
B. Williams sold his interest to his brother, Younger J., who, as an equal
partner with Wm. F. Switzler, on January 1, 1843, changed the name of the
paper to Missouri Statesman, under which name, with Wm. F. Switzler
as editor, it has ever since been issued, now nearly forty years.

Mr. Sanford, some years afterward, went to Los Angelos [sic], California,
and just before the war was lost on the Sacramento River in a burning steamboat.

Younger J. Williams died February 19, 1843, and his interest was
resold to his brother John B., who, in January, 1845, sold out to Wm. F.
Switzler, who then became sole editor and proprietor. John B. Williams
died in Fulton, Mo., April 6, 1882, aged sixty years, as editor and proprietor
of the Telegraph.

Mr. Patten was a very reputable citizen, small in stature, and quite
deaf. He and his wife set the type for his paper and edited it, she therefore
being the first female compositor west of the Mississippi River.8
The Patriot was first published in a little hewed log house on the
northeast corner of the lot on which Mr. B. Loeb now lives, and afterwards
in a small frame (destroyed by fire Oct., 1874), which then stood on Broadway,
near the old brick public school building. Several of the printers' stands,
made of walnut lumber, which were used in the Intelligencer office
in 1819, and in the offices of all its successors, are now in daily use
in the office of the Statesman.

Nathaniel Patten, Jr., a son of the proprietor of the old Intelligencer,
now resides at South Fork, Rio Grande County, Colorado, and from him we
have recently received bound files in good order of that paper from April
23, 1819, to December 5, 1835, a period of more than sixteen years.

Arrival of the first steamboat.

The second notable event in 1819 was the arrival at Franklin, on
May 28, of the steamer Independence, of Capt. John Nelson - the first which
ever attempted the navigation of the Missouri River.

Col. Elias Rector and others, of St. Louis, had chartered her at
Louisville, Ky., to go up the Missouri as high as the town of Chariton,
now a deserted town two miles above Glascow, near the mouth of the Chariton
River. She left St. Louis May 15, 1819, and arrived at Franklin, Howard
County, on May 28, occasioning the wildest excitement and the greatest
joy among the people.

1. The county was reduced to its present limits by
an act of the Legislature approved February 16, 1825. See Revised Statutes,
1825. Vol. I, page 233.
2. See Franklin (Mo.) Intelligencer of November 26, 1822.
3. See Franklin (Mo.) Intelligencer of January 7, 1823. The spring
or "lick" is about two miles northeast of the ferry landing opposite
Arrow Rock, and is on land now (1882) owned by Wm. N. Marshall.
4. Cooper's Fort was two miles southwest of Boone's Lick; Kincaid's, nine
miles southwest of Cooper's and about one mile north of the present (1882)
railroad bridge at Boonsville; and Fort Hempstead, about one and a half
miles north of Kincaid's. All were built in 1812. (Campbell's Gazetteer,
p.246.) The spot on which Cooper's Fort was located is now (1882) about
one and a half miles from the ferry landing opposite Arrow Rock, and the
land is owned by John A. Fisher. Capt. Sarshell Cooper, after whom the
fort was named, was killed in it on the night of April 14, 1814, by Indians,
and buried near by, the precise placed on interment being now unknown,
and in a corn or wheat field. Mr. Eusebius Hubbard, who now (1882) resides
on the two-mile prairie, ten miles southeast of Columbia, and who came
to Howard county from Madison county, Ky., aided in building Fort Hempstead.
5. "Thrall's Prairie", or "the Model Farm", is twelve miles northwest of
Columbia and four north of Rocheport, and is now in part the property of
Warren A. Smith.
6. Mr. Berry was a gentlemen of wealth and a large land speculator. On
August 31, 1824, he fought a duel on Wolf Island, in the Mississippi River,
with Judge Abiel Leonard, formerly of Fayette, at ten paces, with pistols.
Berry fell at the first fire, mortally wounded, but lingered until September
22, same year, and died at New Madrid. During the war of 1812 he served
in the Pay Department of the Northwestern army at Detroit.
7. Mr. Holliday was born in Spottsylvania C.H., Va., June 8, 1786; came
to Franklin, Mo., in February, 1819, and died near Boonsboro, Howard County,
Mo., April 1, 1859.
8. Mrs. Patten, formerly Miss Elvira A. Williams, was born near Charleston
Va., July 4, 1807, and died in St. Joseph, Mo. (then being Mrs. Overall),
on January 24, 1878, aged 71 years. In 1823, at Old Chariton, Howard County,
she first married Dr. John Holman. He dying on Monday, November 27, 1826,
and Mr. Patten's wife, Mrs. Matilda Patten, dying on Friday, December 27,
1829, on Sunday, February 27, 1831, at the residence of Mrs. H.T. Peerce,
in Columbia, Rev. W.P. Cochran officiating, they were married. The fruit
of this marriage was Nathaniel Patten, Jr., who now resides in South Fork,
Rio Grande County, Colo. After the death of Mr. Patten, she married Maj.
Wilson Lee Overall, of St. Charles (Aug. 16, 1840), by whom she had three
children, namely, Mrs. John F. Williams, St. Louis (wife of the Insurance
Commissioner), John H. Overall, of St. Louis, a well known lawyer, and
son-in-law of Hon. J.S. Rollins, and Mrs. L.E. Carter, of St. Joseph, at
whose house she died, as above stated. Maj. Overall died in St. Charles
of paralysis, December 24, 1850. Mr. Patten died in St. Charles in 1837,
and at the time of his death was proprietor of the Clarion newspaper.